Rob, thanks for your answer but I'm looking into a solution where this can be done as part of my List Instance process. I don't know if there are some options through the element.xml file to include files which were provisioned to e.g. an image folder under the _layouts folder? If the only option is code behind It would be nice to have some more details as you propsed. Thanks in advance!
–
Wim HillAug 2 '11 at 14:09

If you want to do it as part of the element.xml then tarjeieo's answer is the right way to go. From a code standpoint, you can create the list in a feature receiver and then add the files as noted above.
–
Rob D'OriaAug 2 '11 at 14:12